Reclamation
by Victoria Bitter
Summary: A year after the Ring quest, Rosie Cotton decides that a change is in order for Sam.


Disclaimer: None of this is mine, except the story, and I have a sneaking suspicion Rosie might not have been entirely Tolkien's, either.  
  
Author's notes: Rosie is terribly flat in the books, a contrivance that annoys me. I don't like to be annoyed, but sometimes, it fuels my muse.  
  
***  
  
"Sam? Sam, I thought you might be hungry, so I brought…"  
  
Rosie stopped cold as she turned the corner of the path. Her hand flew to her mouth, releasing the folds of her apron and dropping the hot blackberry pastie unnoticed to the grass. A hard, cold lump seemed to clog her breath, and she swallowed hard, her fingers trembling against her lips.  
  
The gardens at Bag End had already returned to their former glory under Sam's gentle skill and the eager hands of dozens of helpers, but all the lush greenery and blossoming bursts of colour only seemed to sharpen the melancholy of the sight before her. Sam sat beneath the new Party Tree, the thin silvered trunk of that strange and beautiful sapling already thick enough to support him without bending as he leaned against it, his fingers slowly stroking through Mr. Baggins's hair as the other hobbit lay with his head in Sam's lap. It was the first day Mr. Baggins had been out since that odd illness, she knew, and he was even paler than usual, but he slept now, deeply and peacefully, and he could not see Sam's face.  
  
He couldn't, perhaps, but Rosie could, and she could almost feel the tears that dripped unnoticed to the ashen skin. Sam's eyes were shut tight, the corners creasing into a web of lines too thick for a hobbit so young, his lips bloodless white as he pressed them together in an attempt to contain the pain that shook those strong, broad shoulders. There was such hurt in Sam's face, such hurt and helplessness that it seemed to tear the air from the summer day, choking her and stabbing a cold anger hard through her heart.  
  
At that moment, Rosie Cotton, who had never hated a thing in her life - not even at the darkest times when Sharkey had come, not even when her family had been nearly turned from her home - at that moment, Rosie hated Frodo Baggins. She hated him with every tear that fell from those kind eyes that long ago had only known smiles, with every shudder of those shoulders that had once born no burden except honest work, and with every sob that choked back from that mouth that had once only laughed.  
  
She hated what Mr. Baggins had done to him. Once, when they were all so much younger so few years ago, she had thought it harmless, but now she chided herself for her blind naiveté.  
  
Oh, true enough, she had mourned with all the other girls the unfairness of a world in which Sam Gamgee would have his heart turned by an odd bachelor- hobbit some fifteen years his senior, but such fussing was to be expected, and it was always half in jest besides. Sam's love for Mr. Baggins was so shiningly clear to everyone that no one could long complain, not even the bitterest old Gammer hoping to match off her daughter to the handsome young gardener. Not even Rosie Cotton, who had watched him grow and so often dreamed of finding a kiss for her secreted in that beautiful mouth someday.  
  
Then Mr. Baggins had betrayed that love. Used it, running off on that mad adventure of his and just taking for granted that Sam, sweet, loving Sam, would follow along. He had, of course. He had gone, and he had stayed by Mr. Baggins's side every step of that horrible journey. She couldn't pretend to understand all of what had been, but she knew that the Ring had been Evil, terrible Evil, and she knew that it had been entirely Mr. Baggins's burden. Only loyalty had kept Sam at his side all those months; months that Rosie had spent staring out at the stars at night and wishing against hope for his safe return.  
  
It was the loyalty she loved about him more than anything, but how her heart ached every time she heard the stories! They laughed of Orcs and Black Riders now, but she saw the scars etched in Sam's feet and Merry's brow, and of course there was the awful broken stump of Mr. Baggins' finger; bitter proof that the songs neglected the truth of blood spilled and lives too nearly lost.  
  
They were home now, safe and secure, but still Mr. Baggins clung greedily to Sam's loyalty, his love. Something on the quest had changed Mr. Baggins, that she knew, for he hardly ever laughed now, and sometimes, when he thought no one was looking, he would get the oddest look in his eyes, like he was seeing something thousands of miles away, and his fingers would stir at his chest, tracing the shape of a Ring. He suffered, and that she pitied, but he was making Sam suffer as well, and that she could not forgive.  
  
Why couldn't he just let Sam go? He still looked like a tweenager, though perhaps not as near childishly-young as he once had, but something in him had grown terribly old, even died. There was not enough left to give Sam the love he wanted, the love he deserved, and Sam sensed that, sensed it as sure as Rosie herself. He kept pouring his love into Mr. Baggins, spending hour after hour trying to raise cheer in that broken heart, but it was like pouring water into a bucket without a bottom, and it was exhausting Sam. It was exhausting and hurting him, but until Mr. Baggins let him go, Rosie knew that he would just keep giving and giving until there was nothing more, and then he would scrape up pretense and give that.  
  
How could Mr. Baggins pretend to love Sam if he would let him spend himself so? That couldn't be love. Maybe it once had been, but it wasn't any more, not proper love, not the kind of love that made both people better and happier. She could love him proper.  
  
The thought took Rosie off guard, and she quickly stepped back, hurrying around the corner only to sink on shaking knees to the ground behind a hedge bursting with roses. The smell hung heavy-sweet in the air, and she reached out almost in a daze, her finger brushing one velvet petal as Sam's voice, young and cheerful, laughed through her memory.  
  
*I do fancy roses. They're right difficult to grow, but when you get everything just perfect, there is nothing prettier. *  
  
She'd giggled then, picked a rose and tapped him on the nose with it. *And what of me, Sam? I'm a Rose, aren't I?*  
  
He'd blushed, tucked his head, but there had been a sparkle to his eyes that had fueled a thousand nights of wishing. *A fine, pretty Rose, and not a thorn on you, neither.*  
  
She could still be his Rose. Rosie's fingers nimbly plucked one of the largest, brightest blooms on the hedge, tucking it into her hair. She could be his pretty Rose, and now that she had come of age, she could even marry him, give him the kind of life he deserved. It was a bold idea, something that had dallied in the edges of her heart for years, but now Sam's tears had given it just cause for finding its proper voice.  
  
Mr. Baggins could pine away all he liked, but he'd lost the right to be loved by the likes of Sam Gamgee anymore, and she could give him what Mr. Baggins never could, freeing his heart from all the cold and loss and sadness etched in his past.  
  
There would be no mentions of Rings or Orcs or Black anything in their hole. She would give him six hot meals a day, and he would give her the finest garden in all Hobbiton, a garden bursting with roses, and they would have babies. Round, laughing, lovely, bright-eyed babies, as many as he wanted. Sam had always been so good with babies, and now he could have a family of his own, something to turn his heart to the future.  
  
It was what Sam deserved, what he needed, and if it also happened to fulfill the lingering dreams of one who'd thought her love long wasted…so much the better. It was just because she'd loved him so long and so quiet that would make Rosie so right for him. Her heart was already full - had been since near forever, since almost twenty years past when a young hobbit maid had first noticed that her playmate was growing too strong and handsome to see with a purely child's eye - and he wouldn't have to do anything but smile to make her happy.  
  
Ignoring the thorns that pricked her fingers in her haste, she chose another rose and tucked it beside the first, smoothing her skirts into place as she stood. Rosie Cotton was determined now, and there were few things that could stand in the way of a Cotton maid with her mind made up…certainly odd bachelors with dead eyes and mangled hands didn't stand much chance at all. She would marry Sam Gamgee, and she would give him the love he deserved.  
  
She would never see him cry again.  
  
The End 


End file.
